parties, was chosen president. The fifth note | of Mirabeau is full of invective against Monsieur Talon, then Lieutenant Civil au Chatelet, and deprecating his appointment to the office of Privy Seal to the King, and to the direction of the Civil List attached to the office. He describes him as altogether deficient in talent, and though wealthy, avaricious to the highest degree,-" A man," he says, "who has Senef as his treasurer, Semonville as his wit, Saint Foix as his counsel, La Fayette as his patron, the Affair Favras as his masterpiece, Brinville as his satellite, and Boucher d'Argis as his instrument." Such personal attacks were not calculated to increase either the esteem or confidence of the Court, for the individuals named were all persons more or less trusted, as well as Mirabeau, if not by the Queen, yet certainly by the King. preciating its usefulness to a great nation, I feel that I should be now taking a most imprudent step, but I know that I am speaking to a Mirabeau." This language was very adroit, for Mirabeau was essentially an aristocrat, and would have been mortified by being treated as one of the tiers-états. He wielded democracy as a club, but the weapon of his choice was the sword of the gentleman. According to Madame de Campan, Mirabeau left the Queen, saying, "La Monarchie est sauvée," In another account we learn that Mirabeau solicited the honor of kissing the Queen's hand, observing, that Maria Theresa, whenever she honored a subject with an audience, gave him her hand to kiss. Mirabeau writes on the 17th July, to the Court, recommending the King and royal family to go to Fontainbleau, and suggests Mirabeau, in his seventh note, gives very all the details of military escort on the route, good advice on the manner in which the and of the composition of the Guard of King should receive the Duke of Orleans on Honor during the residence there. He rehis return from England, which he recom- commends that the utmost publicity should mends to be courteous and cordial. The be given to the King's intention by a message eighth note is dated the 3d of July, which from the King to the Assembly, and that La was the day on which the interview between Fayette's support should be insisted upon. the Queen and Mirabeau took place at St. The journey to Fontainbleau, thus strongly Cloud, at eight o'clock in the morning. Mi- recommended by Mirabeau, and which must abeau, in this note, compares the state of have greatly improved the personal position the royal authority under the ancient regime of the royal family, never took place. The and under the actual one. He considers it high- fifteenth note to the Court is a short and ly advantageous to be without parliaments, masterly sketch of the points of foreign powithout pays d'etat (or provinces with re-licy that demanded the special attention of presentative assemblies), and generally without privileged bodies. The notion of having only one class, would have pleased Richelieu. Our readers will with ourselves regret, that neither the Comte de La Marck nor Mirabeau give any details of the interview of the latter with the Queen. The editor, to supply the deficiency, gives an extract from the Memoirs of Madame de Campan," who had the little she relates of the interview from the Queen herself. The Queen on approaching Mirabeau, said to him :-" With an ordinary enemy, and with a man who had sworn to destroy the Monarchy without ap Mons. Talon left Paris after the 10th of August, and returned in 1801, was imprisoned for a short time during the Consulate in the Chateau d'If, and afterwards disappeared altogether from public life. Monsieur Semonville was employed in the diplomatic service: he was arrested by the Austrian Government, and exchanged in 1795 against Madame the daughter of Louis XVI. He became Referendaire of the House of Peers, from which office he retired in 1834. the French Government. Of this sketch, short as it is, England occupied the principal portion. Mirabeau, however willing to adopt the framework of the British constitution for France, partook largely of the vulgar suspicions of the English Government entertained by his countrymen. Two notes are devoted to a better organization of the Swiss regiments in the French service. We pass to the eighteenth note, and to a remarkable passage in it, evidently blaming the undue confidence which Mirabeau more than suspected was still given to La Fayette, and expressing his own increased discouragement. He dwells particularly upon engaging in a foreign war (arising out of the alliance with Spain) at a moment when the state of affairs at home required undivided attention; he ends this note thus:-"I will wait till a clap of thunder breaks the lethargy which I cannot but deplore. In a conference easily concocted, many things upon which I am neither guessed at nor understood, might be explained." That conference was never granted. In the twenty-first note (p. 149), Mira- | remarks, "that public opinion is not always beau discusses the financial embarrassments the result of the general enlightenment of a of the Government, he treats the measures nation. Some men anticipate this opinion, of Necker as wholly inadequate to the crisis. their contemporaries follow them, and hence and comes to the conclusion that an issue of it happens that the multitude blindly adopts paper on the security of the property of the errors as truths. At the epoch of a great clergy is the only means of preventing revolution public opinion is formed suddenly, national bankruptcy. The following passage and almost accidentally. The more univeris worth notice :-"It is impossible to enter- sal it is, the less it is enlightened, and it tain too much apprehension of a bankruptcy becomes the more dangerous because it as-the most vigorous despotism could hardly sumes the character of the general will, and stand the shock, but despotism is for ever of the law." Is not the justice of these ended in France. The Revolution may mis- observations confirmed by the Revolution of carry, the Constitution may be overthrown, February, 1848, and the instantaneous and royalty torn into tatters by anarchy, establishment in France of a Democratic but the nation will never retrogade to despo- Republic? tism." Mirabeau's sagacity here was at fault, for he did not take into account what might be achieved by a successful general when the country had become weary with the successive phases of anarchy. In our day the eventualities propounded by Mirabeau have occurred, and the question is still to be solved-"Will France again retrograde to despotism? or will the absence of a successful general prevent it?" We find in Mirabeau's twenty-ninth note (p. 209) to the Court, two passages so applicable to the present state of affairs in France, that we think them well worth extracting." Whatever be done, the charges of the new will be greater than those on the ancient regime, and on the whole the people will judge the Revolution by this fact onlyWill more or less money be taken from the pocket? will there be more work? and, will that work be better paid? Again: we must act, not to excite opposition against bad laws, inevitable and necessary evils, but to direct opinion to an useful end, and that end is the legal and not violent reformation of the vices of the Constitution, whether in this Assembly, if the general discontent breaks out before it is replaced, or in a second legislature, by showing the necessity of assigning to it a constituent and ratifying authority." The Comte de La Marck had an interview with the Queen on the 9th of October, and his note of the 10th to Mirabeau gives the following brief account of the result (p. 221): In Mirabeau's opinion Necker would never be able or willing to execute the measures of regulating the issue of the assignats, and he therefore recommends his friend Clavière (who was, in fact, the author of the scheme) for the direction of this particular operation. There is a passage in Necker's work on his own administration, which shows that he was quite aware of the immediate convenience of a large issue of paper money, for he says, at its 142d page: "If the question of morality be excluded from an examination of the two great measures of the National Assembly, the seizure of Church property, and the payment of the "The Queen then gave assurances that she debts of the State on the security of the would communicate with La Fayette, as if saleable value of certain landed property, the ostensible concert still existed. The imit is not to be denied that the combina-portance of spreading correct information in tion of the two is the greatest and most rapid financial operation that can be imagined." Necker, in forming his financial measures, thought of that day of reckoning, which must come sooner or later, while Mirabeau sought to get over the present difficulties, which so much impeded the political organisation of the Government. Necker retired from the ministry soon after the debate on the large issue of assignats. The press was, in Mirabeau's opinion (p. 162), the only resource left to the Government for influencing public opinion, and he proposes, in the twenty-third note, the getting up a cheap newspaper for the purpose. He the provinces was felt; the means of doing this would be supplied, and the persons to be employed should be pointed out. He (the King) attached but little importance to the alliance with Spain." Probably the King's indifference arose from the family compact being the act of Choiseul, for whom he had an hereditary aversion. Mirabeau was again disappointed in the presidential election (p. 225). Merlin was chosen; and he says the act threw more ridicule upon the Assembly than upon him. In his thirtieth note, Mirabeau, answering questions propounded to him by La Marck, lays down the fundamental principles of the Constitution in these terms:- Hereditary royalty in the Bourbon dynasty. A legislature periodically elected and permanent, limited in its functions to framing laws. Unity and very extensive power in the supreme Executive; authority over all matters belonging to the internal administration, to the giving effect to the law, and the command of the armed force. Taxation to be vested exclusively in the legislative body; a new division of the kingdom; justice free of charge; liberty of the press; responsibility of ministers; sale of church property; the re-establishment of a civil list; no distinction of orders; no privileges or pecuniary exemptions; no feodality; no parliaments; no nobility or clergy as separate bodies; no pays d'états; no provincial bodies. These are what I understand to be the fundamental principles of the Constitution. They only limit the royal power to strengthen it, and are perfectly reconcilable with monarchical governments." Mirabeau may have been, as La Fayette says, sold to the Court, but he certainly might have avowed such principles as these in the tribune of the Assembly. Mirabeau recommended the Court to send literary men as agents into the provinces; and he says of them, that they are "a class of citizens independent in character, but wise and sagacious from a long study of men and things. He proposes a salary of 1,000 livres a month for each agent; an outlay of 8,000 livres for works directed to the guidance of public opinion; he takes 100,000 livres as the total of the expenditure for four or five years. The patronage of this service would necessarily have fallen into Mirabeau's hands. We apprehend that the commissaires sent after February, 1848, into the departments by the Provisional Government, did not perform their work as cheaply; and certainly not in the same principles or spirit. The report of the diplomatic committee on the meeting of the squadron at Brest, contained the project of a decree requiring that the national color, the tricolor, should be used on board ships of the royal navy instead of the white flag, and insisted upon the dismissal of the ministers; it led to a very violent debate. Monsieur de Montmorin was, on an amendment, excepted from the vote. Mirabeau did not speak on the subject of the Ministers, but he made-probably under feelings of great vexation at the intervention of Bergasse in the confidential communications with the Court-a very violent speech on that part of the decree relating to the tricolor flag, and he proposed as an addition that the sailors should, instead of "Vive le roi!" cry "Vive la nation! vive le roi! vive la loi!" He also accused the Côté Droit of being counter-revolutionists. Such language gave great offence to the Court, and drew upon Mirabeau a strong remonstrance from La Marck. Mirabeau's answer (p. 251) must have been written under feelings of great irritation, for he persists in the same tone of violence which had marked his speech, and is quite Jacobinical in his menaces. The only words of apology, or rather moderation, are these:-"Je suis l'homme du rétablissement de l'ordre, et non de l'ancien ordre." The Archbishop of Toulouse was in utter dismay on the perusal of this note. In writing to La Marck, he says:-"I return to you Comte Mirabeau's note, which I must own inspires me with horror.' In the thirty-fourth note to the Court, Mirabeau endeavors to excuse his not speaking on the dismissal of the Ministers, by saying that he did not choose to support the motion for a partial dismissal, when the minister excepted, Comte de Montmorin, was especially commended as the friend of Monsieur La Fayette,-a cogent reason for dismissing, and not for retaining him. Mirabeau, with his accustomed assurance, treats very lightly the question of the flag. "They will undoubtedly reproach me with having preferred the tricolor to the white flag, which their party wishes to maintain." He is altogether silent on the most offensive part of his speech-the change in the rallying cry of the sailors. This note is mere evasion, and could not have lessened the just displeasure of the Court. The thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth notes show that Mirabeau felt he had gone too far (pp. 257 and 262), and he clothes his excuses in more submissive and palatable language. At the conclusion of the latter note, he says, My zeal was never so pure, my devotion more unbounded, my desire of being useful more constant, I might say more obstinate. It is not for myself, but for the success of the great object in view, that I court confidence, and those who may deprive me of it shall not tear from my heart, neither my gratitude, nor the oath I have taken to defend the royal authority, even if I combat alone, and fall in this noble struggle. I shall have Europe as a witness, and posterity as a judge." These expressions, extravagant as they are, coming from Mirabeau were sincere. He was really anxious for the main pression, "La Cocarde Tricolore fera le tour de l'Europe." It was on this occasion that he used the ex tenance of the monarchy, and he had enthusiasm and courage sufficient to make every personal sacrifice, even that of life itself, in defending it. Had he not been somewhat lowered in his own estimation by being an unavowed and secretly paid adviser, he would probably have been less irritable and inconsistent. The dissatisfaction produced at Court by Mirabeau's outbreak in the Assembly on the 19th did not last long, for on the 27th Comte de La Marck writes to him that the Queen had no other reason for not seeing him but the fear of being compromised by it; circumstances had rendered her more manageable on the point, and if he persisted in thinking that minor objections should give way, it would be possible to obtain her consent to an interview. The two letters from Comte de La Marck to Comte de Mercy d'Argenteau (pp. 281 to 289,) contain a summary of recent occurrences at Paris, and reflections thereon full of impartiality and good sense. The most interesting passages contain his opinion of Mirabeau. In the first letter he says, "For this man is by turns very great and very weak, he may be very useful and also very hurtful; in a word, he is often far above and far below other men." And in the second, "What a being that man is,-always on the verge of running wild or of being discouraged; by turns imprudent from excess of confidence or enervated from distrust. It is very difficult to guide him in affairs which require perseverance and prudence." La Marck might well say that he had great difficulty in managing him. From the time that the decree of the Assembly had excluded the King's ministers from the Assembly, and deprived Mirabeau of the great object of his ambition, all his recommendations to the Court tended to the establishment of confidential agents throughout the provinces, who should be named and directed by himself, independent of the nominal ministry. In the thirty-ninth note he goes a step farther, and at the moment of forming a new ministry, he suggests that there should be attached to each minister a man of superior talents, who, without the title, would be the real head and moving power in the preparation and execution of all important measures. Mirabeau, as he had done before respecting the provincial agents, professes to be acquainted with men fit for these duties, or in other words, he is ready with agents of his nomination, who should be the real ministers. It must be painful to those who feel an interest in the reputation of La Fayette to read the following passage in La Marck's letter to the Comte Mercy. "He (La Fayette) had a few days since a long conference with the Queen: in it he employed the most odious language to alarm her; and he went so far as to say, that in order to obtain a divorce, she would be prosecuted for adultery. The Queen answered with the dignity, the courage, and the firmness of which you know her to be possessed. But one is filled with indignation in thinking of such behavior from such a man as Monsieur La Fayette." The statement of what passed at the conference must have come from the Queen herself, and one really cannot see any sufficient reason for misrepresentation on her part. The correspondence from the 9th to the 22d of November is occupied with the alleged appearance of Madame La Motte at Paris, the pillage of the Hôtel de Castries by the Parisian Mob in revenge for the Marquis de Castries having wounded Charles La Motte in a duel, and the application from the inhabitants of Avignon to be annexed to the French territory. Mirabeau is most vehement in the expression of his determination to defend the Queen against the base attempts of her enemies to injure her, by reviving the affair of the diamond necklace. Assuming the report of the appearance of Madame La Motte at Paris to be true (which he believed it to be), he suggests that the Garde de Sceaux should take the ordinary course of having her arrested, as having escaped from the house of correction, where she had been confined by a sentence of the Parliament. Mirabeau suspected that the Duke of Orleans had caused Madame La Motte to be brought to Paris for the purpose of injuring the Queen in public opinion, and that La Fayette was not indisposed to use the occurrence for his own purposes. The Comte de La Marck did not share Mirabeau's suspicions respecting the Duke of Orleans, Mirabeau's zeal on this occasion, as might be expected, was very gratifying to the Queen, and increased her confidence in him. Droz, who is in general observing and accurate, does not mention Madame La Motte's appearance in Paris, and certainly the supposed intrigue had no tangible result. The language held by Mirabeau in the debate on the pillage of the Hotel of the Marquis de Castries, and the duel with La Motte, was that of a violent Jacobin, approving, or at least not condemning the conduct of the mob. We learn from the letter of the Archbishop of Toulouse to Comte de La Marck, that the impression produced at Court was most unfavorable to Mirabeau; and that his speech on the 13th of October was regarded as "an outbreak" from "a tribune of the people," who sought to justify its atrocities and to excite popular fury against those who notoriously were the friends of the King and of the monarchy. Pethion de Villeneuve made a report to the Assembly in the name of the Avignon Committee, recommending compliance with the application of the inhabitants for annexation to France. Mirabeau succeeded in carrying the following amendment:" The National Assembly, after having heard the report of the diplomatic committee, postpones the consideration of the application of the people of Avignon, and decrees that the King shall be requested to send a body of troops to Avignon, to protect, under his orders, the French establishments, and to maintain, in concert with the municipal officers, the public tranquillity:" thus substituting temporary occupation for permanent annexation the latter was decreed on the 14th September, 1791, some months after Mirabeau's death. La Marck was not satisfied with Mirabeau's amendment; but as some days afterwards the minister for Foreign Affairs and the Pope's Nuncio most pressingly urged upon the diplomatic committee the sending French troops to Avignon, Mirabeau, in communicating this fact to La Marck, was enabled to write, "Comment vous etes justes, vous autres! En verité vous deviez vous accorder." This is the only instance in which he was right when he differed from his prudent friend, and we allude to it on that account. Mirabeau was not more dissatisfied with the conduct of the Court than was the Comte de La Marck, who writes to Comte Mercy on the 24th of November, that "the torpor of the Court seems to increase daily. The ministry has been renewed without the Queen having brought into it any one person devoted to herself. However great my zeal, the relations that I have established can lead to nothing, if they remain as they are now; for it is useless to give good advice, if no means exist for carrying it into ef fect." The manner in which La Marck, as well as Mirabeau, speaks on all occasions of the Queen, shows that their sole reliance was upon her, and that the King was, unaided by her superior energy, unconsciously a mere tool in the hands of La Fayette. The Comte de Montmorin, in the early part of December, made great advances to Mirabeau, and proposed a coalition. This proposal produced the forty-fifth note to the Court, dated the 4th of December, in which, while he gives his opinion that advantage might arise from the measure, he hesitates to accept the interview proposed by the minister, because Talon and Duquesnoy were cognisant of the plan, and they were distrusted by Mirabeau as adherents of La Fayette. It is to be recollected that the Comte de Montmorin himself had been distasteful to Mirabeau from the same cause. Mirabeau, as far as appears from the Correspondence, did not wait for instructions from the Court, but had an interview with Montmorin. Nothing could be more unreserved than his explanations to Mirabeau. He, as the most important point, disclaimed at once all connexion with Mons. La Fayette, of whom he says, that "he (La Fayette) has no other ambition than that of being praised; and as to power, he rather seeks the appearance of it than the reality; and as to constancy in friendship, he only loves himself, and that only for himself." He described the influence of La Fayette over the Court, as caused by fear. He (Montmorin) and his colleagues were all tired of La Fayette's interference; for "the pretension to be a prime minister, independent of the ministry, and prime minister without functions, destroys the royal authority, and it is that authority which requires to be established." Montmorin asserted that La Fayette was bound to the Lameths and Duport (leaders of the Democratic party) by written engagements, and that he had been at certain times their accomplice. All La Fayette's other adherents had been gained by the minister; and in the dilapidated state of his fortune, unless funds were supplied by the Court, he could not even retain an aid-decamp. The course to take, was to leave him in the command of the National Guards till a loyal and trustworthy successor could be selected. The Comte passed from this capital point, as regarded the intended coalition, to the comparative advantages of his own position, in not being suspected by the Assembly, nor by the different parties therein, nor by the public, and therefore he was in a situation to be an useful intermediate agent between the King and the nation. Montmorin complained, that, nevertheless, the persons about the Queen had always prevented him from enjoying her confidence, and consequently he had never possessed that of the King. The Comte de Mercy had given hopes of a favorable change towards him, and by his advice he had seen the Queen |